Orcagna

Orcagna (ōrkä`nyä) or Arcagnolo (ärkä`nyōlō), c.1308–1368, Florentine painter, sculptor, and architect, whose original name was Andrea di Cione. He was one of the leading artists of his day. According to Vasari, writing more than 200 years later, Orcagna studied sculpture under Andrea Pisano. In 1343 he enrolled in St. Luke's Guild as a painter. The only extant authenticated painting is his famous altarpiece in the Strozzi Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, Florence. It represents The Redeemer with the Madonna and Saints (1537). In his painting he reverted from a more naturalistic style to the Byzantine remote and monumental figural type. He usually worked in collaboration with his brothers Nardo, Jacopo, and Matteo di Cione. They were all strongly influenced by the naturalism of Giotto. Fragments of the Prophets by Orcagna and his assistants have come to light in Santa Maria Novella, as well as portions of his Triumph of Death, Last Judgment, and Hell in the Church of Santa Croce (1530s). In 1355 he was appointed chief architect of Orsanmichele in Florence, for which he executed an elaborate marble tabernacle depicting The Death and Assumption of the Virgin. In 1359 he became chief architect of the cathedral at Orvieto and designed a mosaic for the facade.

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Orcagna

Andrea , original name Andrea di Cione. ?1308--68, Florentine painter, sculptor, and architect

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Orcagna 

(Andrea di Cione). First mentioned in 1343 or 1344; died 1368 in Florence. Italian painter, sculptor, and architect. Representative of the Florentine school of the trecento.

Orcagna participated in building the cathedral of Orvieto from 1359 to 1362 and the cathedral of Florence in 1357 and from 1365 to 1367. In his sculpture and painting, which are strongly influenced by Giotto and Andrea Pisano, plastic clarity of representation is combined with Gothic features of refined ornamentation and enamel-like coloring. Examples are the surviving fragment of the fresco Triumph of Death in the church of Santa Croce in Florence (c. 1350) and the altarpiece in the Strozzi Chapel of Santa Maria Novella in Florence (1354–57).

The di Cione family included Orcagna’s brothers, the painters Nardo (died 1365 or 1366 in Florence) and Jacopo (mentioned between 1365 and 1398).

REFERENCES

Gronau, H. D. Andrea Orcagna und Nardo di Cione. Berlin, 1937.
Boskovits, M. “Orcagna in 1357 and in Other Times.” The Burlington Magazine, 1971, vol. 113, no. 818, pp. 239–51.